Archives for USAID

David N. Cicilline is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-RI).

USAID is showing extraordinary leadership by establishing the LGBT Global Development Partnership to address serious issues of inequality and discrimination faced by LGBT individuals around the world. Both in the quality of USAID’s work and the way it is doing business, it has recognized that we cannot achieve our development goals unless we first learn to solve problems creatively, partner with our private sector allies, and address how equal treatment can empower individuals to be more effective and impactful members of society.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took the bold step just a few years ago to assert that “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights,” and this initiative builds upon her leadership as well as the incredible leadership of President Barack Obama, who addressed the nations of the world at the UN and said, “No country should deny people their rights because of who they love, which is why we must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere.”

America’s leadership in the world on the issue of LGBT equality is no coincidence. Equality and equal protection of the law are deeply embedded in the idea of America and the foundation of our democracy. We were, after all, a country that was founded on this radical idea – or at least radical at the time – that people have inalienable rights not because of the generosity of a monarch or a sovereign ruler, but as a result of the natural affairs of human existence and a recognition that every person has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

America’s real power in the world is the overwhelming might of these founding principles, and it is important to understand our responsibility to countless LGBT individuals all over the world who face violence, institutional discrimination, criminalization of their status, and violations of basic human rights. The challenges that USAID addresses – global health, access to food and water, education, and economic growth – cannot be fully met unless we are honoring basic human rights, especially the basic responsibility of keeping LGBT individuals safe. This partnership will do just that.

We must urgently make certain all LGBT individuals around the world are safe from violence and physical harm. In 2011, I introduced and successfully worked to pass an amendment out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that would have empowered the Secretary of State to discourage foreign governments from sanctioning acts of violence against individuals because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. I will continue to work with my colleagues to strengthen the collaboration between federal agencies and Congressional leaders in order to apply pressure to governing bodies that oppress LGBT communities abroad.

And I know that we can continue to make progress on these issues because LGBT voices are stronger than ever in Congress. I am one of six co-chairs of the LGBT Equality Caucus in the House, and our membership grows every day.

While our work to enact legal prohibitions against discrimination and violence continues, ultimately our progress must not only be reflected in the executive orders of our President, or even in the laws adopted by Congress, but in the words and actions of ordinary citizens in cities and towns all across America and the world who are seeing members of the LGBT community marry, serve their country openly and honestly, raise families, hold office, and distinguish themselves as business and academic leaders.

Seeing the power of these examples will, in the end, help advance the cause of equality all over the world.

On March 23, 245 combatants from the militia group Kata Katanga marched into Lubumbashi in Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). After entering the UN Peacekeeping base there, the combatants, including 40 minors, reportedly surrendered and were disarmed. With support from USAID, UNICEF and its local partner Reconfort responded to the situation within hours, verifying and separating these 40 children from the surrendered group. UNICEF successfully negotiated to allow the children to be turned over for care in the transit center, rather than be handed over to government officials along with the Kata Katanga adult combatants.

These children, all boys between the ages of 10 and 17 who UNICEF and Reconfort were able to literally “separate” from the armed group, were placed in a transit center in Lubumbashi, which Reconfort was able to open, stock, and staff within a single day as a result of USAID’s ongoing work to improve the local organization’s capacity. In the transit center, these 40 boys are getting shelter, protection, medical care, psychosocial support, and opportunities for recreational and educational activities. Over the next few months, the youth will be reintegrated into their families and communities and enrolled in school or vocational training programs.

Murals at a USAID-supported transit center for children associated with armed groups in Goma, North Kivu. Written in Swahili above the murals are the sentences “Children are not intended to be soldiers” and “Help me to leave the armed group.” Photo credit: USAID

Since 2011, USAID’s child protection work with UNICEF has separated over 1,100 children from armed groups in North Kivu, South Kivu, Orientale, and Katanga provinces, provided separated children with temporary care in transit centers or foster families, supported their reintegration into their communities, and helped an additional 5,000 conflict-affected children to enroll in school or obtain vocational skills training. In addition, USAID has strengthened the capacity of 15 local organizations, like Reconfort, that are assisting children associated with armed groups, and we have created or strengthened over 70 community committees to promote child rights at the grassroots level and prevent child recruitment into armed groups. USAID has recently signed an agreement to continue UNICEF’s child protection project, bringing the total project amount to $5 million. This new agreement will give the project more geographic flexibility and build more capacity among local organizations to ensure rapid response to unexpected events like this one.

Chuck Cooper is the Assistant Administrator of Legislative & Public Affairs

Earlier this year, in his State of the Union address, President Obama made a commitment to ending extreme poverty in the next two decades. Today, with the release of the President’s budget for Fiscal Year 2014 (FY14), we are reminded of our role in fulfilling this commitment. As an agency, we’re fortunate to have this as our mission: to work on behalf of the American people to eradicate poverty and its most devastating corollaries, widespread hunger and preventable child death.

To seize this moment, USAID is fundamentally changing the way we work: harnessing innovation, science and technology; leveraging our resources to build partnerships that have an even greater impact; and focusing like never before on delivering and measuring results. To deliver these results, we are implementing an ambitious set of reforms called USAID Forward that have touched every aspect of our work.

While real progress has been made, we’re clear-eyed about the challenges ahead. Under the President’s budget, USAID will continue to strengthen our reform efforts. Our budget fact sheet outlines some of the critical programs that are funded under this budget – and details an important new reform initiative to modernize how the United States delivers food aid.

The President’s food aid reform proposal envisions a more efficient, effective, and timely program that will reach 4 million more hungry people each year. Today, Administrator Shah will share his vision on the future of food assistance at an event hosted by CSIS. To learn more about food aid reform, please visit our food aid reform page: www.usaid.gov/foodaidreform

Alongside diplomacy and defense, our development work will continue to play a critical role in America’s economic and national security. With just over one percent of the federal budget, the State Department and USAID budget moves us closer to ending extreme poverty, advances U.S. national security, protects Americans at home and abroad, opens markets overseas, creates American jobs, forges global partnerships and delivers real results for the American people.

Three young boys look to be having some fun while they use a public standpipe in Bauchi town, Nigeria. This is one of the sites where town residents retrieve water since few have water taps at their homes. In December 2011, USAID’s Sustainable Water and Sanitation in Africa project signed an agreement with town officials to help them expand and improve services to residents. Demand for water in urban areas like Bauchi exceeds 200,000 cubic meters per day—nearly four times the volume the town’s water utility is currently able to pump to its customers. Photo is from Emily Mutai, SUWASA.

On April 5, USAID joined UN Foundation’s Momentum 1000 and millions around the globe in a digital rally to mark the 1,000 day milestone until the 2015 target date to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): A promise made to free people from extreme poverty and extend hope and opportunity to the millions living in developing regions. 189 nations are striving together to meet the MDGs. The digital rally encouraged partners around the globe to continue their commitment to end extreme poverty and build a better world for all.

In commemoration of the April 5 milestone, USAID hosted a Twitter chat with Policy Director Steve Feldstein, who discussed USAID efforts to meet President Obama’s to end extreme poverty within the next two decades.

GAIN moderated a live discussion on Google Hangout to address progress on food security with guests USAID and GAIN on April 5. Photo credit: USAID

In addition, USAID participated in a Google Hangout, hosted by US News and GAIN, to discuss progress made on global food security and nutrition as well as overall efforts to create a more nourished, food secure world.

In Tajikistan, there is a familiar proverb: “In every drop of water, there is a grain of gold.” Water is the most precious resource in this mountainous, landlocked nation that is slightly smaller than Wisconsin.

More than 70 years of Soviet industrialization depleted water resources; moreover, many of the collective farms that maintained irrigation systems were dissolved 20 years ago and water systems have fallen into disrepair. For villages that have water, it is often contaminated. About half of all Tajik rural households do not have access to safe, potable water. In many instances, polluted irrigation water is the only source of water for household use.

School children in Khatlon enjoy their first taste of drinking water outside their school. Photo credit: USAID

According to the World Health Organization, waterborne diseases in Tajikistan account for 60 percent of gastroenteritic disorders such as diarrhea, dysentery, cholera and typhoid. Repeated illnesses linked to poor quality water not only keep children out of school and contribute to poor health outcomes, including stunted growth, but it is estimated that, in recent years, one in six deaths among children under age 5 in Tajikistan were linked to waterborne diseases.

Previous local efforts to build or maintain water systems were unsuccessful due to a cumbersome legal framework, lack of clarity over management responsibilities and lack of funding. Operators of small water systems often did not have training, and local residents had low awareness of the dangers of waterborne illnesses.

But, as communities begin to understand the value of steady access to clean water, they are coming together with USAID and other partners to install and maintain pipe networks. These new networks, often co-funded by local communities and built by local citizens, are proving sustainable in ways that earlier networks never were.

A Holistic Approach

USAID recognized that any solution would have to be multi-faceted and cross multiple technical sectors. To be successful, the safe drinking water program would need to build the skills of engineers, increase community awareness on water and health, and partner with local governments to democratically maintain the water systems. In addition, through Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s flagship food security initiative, USAID is partnering with local government officials in their efforts to increase the role and effectiveness of community-based water users’ associations and increase household consumption of nutritious food.

Jamoliddin Gulomov, chairman of Novobod Township, was eager to partner with USAID. His village in the southern province of Khatlon has never had access to clean water. Residents relied on the river, but the high price of fuel kept most people from boiling water before using it. USAID trained township specialists to maintain and repair the pipe network. The project also trained local peer educators to teach residents about health and hygiene practices. Finally, to ensure that the system was financially sound and sustainable, the Agency provided technical assistance and training to the local government to develop a transparent scheme for user fees.

Community members spoke up at local government meetings to set user fees, dug the pipeline, installed the pump station and, finally, celebrated the opening of the new system.

In addition to reporting a dramatic decline in the incidence of gastroenteritic diseases, Gulomov said, “We now have proven that the local government and citizens can cooperate to make life better for everyone.”

A Focus on Sustainability

Gulomov’s experience mirrors that of other communities involved in this project. Priority areas for this program were those that had received the least donor assistance and that had the worst health indicators. Local townships applied and were selected based partly on their capacity to sustain the improvements.

USAID partnered with a local university to train engineers in maintaining the new water systems. Students received internships to practice their engineering skills. Communities formed water, sanitation and hygiene committees to create a community health index report of baseline data and develop community health action plans based on the results.

Over the past three years, USAID has invested more than $1.7 million in improving 57 drinking water systems that provide access to clean drinking water to 150,000 people in Tajikistan…[continued]

Dr. Maura O’Neill is the chief innovation officer and senior counselor to the administrator at USAID.

Last weekend we joyfully celebrated the engagement of our white son to an African-American woman. It wasn’t that many years ago in our country that they would be thrown in jail for dating, let alone wanting to marry. As a mom I can’t imagine how I would survive the phone call Judy Shepard received letting her know that her beloved son Matthew, a University of Wyoming student had been tortured and beaten. Just because he was gay. Around the world this story is too common, robbing people of dignity and opportunity and our communities of the tremendous contributions that people who are free to be who they are can make.

Frank Mugisha from Uganda wrote to us after he learned that Claire Lucas and Deputy Administrator Don Steinberg at USAID were committed to conceiving a way to create a different future- now- for the hundreds of millions of LGBT globally. “I get phone calls everyday about people being abused by their own families, threatened by neighbors, refused health services, expelled from schools, all because they are LGBT.”

Frank knows firsthand the hardships LGBT individuals face in many countries. In 2011, his friend and fellow advocate at the organization Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) was murdered after having won a lawsuit against a magazine that had identified him as gay and called for his execution.

In 2011, the United Nations Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report outlining in detail the global pattern of human rights abuses against LGBT individuals. The report found that in every region of the world, LGBT individuals are subject to hate-motivated violence—including murder, so-called “corrective” rape, and torture—as well as discrimination in jobs, health care, and education.

To make matters worse, governments are often complicit in supporting such discrimination. In fact, 85 countries and territories criminalize LGBT behavior. And seven countries have a death penalty for same-sex sexual activity.

Fortunately, people around the world are recognizing that such violence, discrimination and governmental intolerance are no longer acceptable. In 2011 the United Nations passed a historic resolution endorsing LGBT human rights. President Obama issued a mandate that agencies involved in foreign aid and development, “enhance their ongoing efforts with governments, citizens, civil society, and the private sector in order to build respect for the human rights of LGBT persons.”

At United States Agency for International Development (USAID), we know that progress is accelerated and lasting when we partner. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, the Gay & Lesbian Victory Institute (GLVI), the Williams Institute, and Olivia Companies joined us in creating the LGBT Global Development Partnership.

The LGBT Global Development Partnership is the largest initiative in the world to further LGBT equality in developing and emerging market countries. It works to strengthen LGBT civil society organizations, enhance LGBT participation in democratic processes and undertake research on the economic impact of LGBT discrimination.

As former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in her 2011 address to the United Nations, “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.” I couldn’t agree more.

The LGBT Global Development Partnership has the potential to make a huge difference in the daily lives of LGBT individuals around the world and the communities in which they live. Because in countries where LGBT individuals can be legally evicted from their homes or arrested simply for being themselves, building connections and a community of empowered LGBT leaders is absolutely critical. I hope you will take a moment to watch the rest of the message from Frank, just one of the millions of committed LGBT advocates out there literally putting their lives on the line to create a better future for all of our children.

Last month, Adminstrator Rajiv Shah discussed the results of the 2013 USAID Forward Progress Report in Washington. The Administrator iterated the Agency’s “north star” as creating conditions so aid is not necessary in the future, and delivering “clear, compelling and measurable results”. In this segment, he offers examples of how USAID is meeting these objectives through partnerships around the world. The event was co-hosted by American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Center for American Progress (CAP). Watch the full video.

This week we are publishing thirteen CPWF outcome stories. Just a few days after the groundbreaking ceremony of the CGIAR Headquarters in Montpellier, where French authorities were told how the new CGIAR was “big, bold and beautiful,” these outcome stories may look small, even tiny. “Islands of success” in the middle of an ambitious “ocean of change.”

What we in CPWF have learnt over the last ten years is that it is not so easy to “get people to do things differently.” We cannot just provide ‘evidence.’ Science lays the foundation by providing deeper understanding of the problems, better ways to target interventions or new solutions (also called “innovations,” “interventions,” “strategies” or “alternatives”). But in order to influence stakeholder behavior and achieve outcomes we need to go one step further and engage stakeholders in the process of research itself. It is through their own learning processes that people begin to change or alter how they make decisions.

But let’s consider them more carefully, because outcomes – the new paradigm for the whole CGIAR, which our program was entrusted to test at its creation ten years ago – come in all shapes and sizes. Indeed, outcomes can be defined as changes in stakeholders’ behaviors through shifts in their practice, investments or decision-making processes. They are more about change than about size.

Another outcome, related to benefit sharing mechanisms in the Rio Ubate / Fuquene lake watershed in Colombia, shows how different stakeholders changed their attitudes towards one another. Combining conservation agriculture with Payment for Environmental Services, partners set up a revolving fund program managed by farmers’ associations. The fund provided smallholder farmers with credit to make an initial investment in conservation agriculture. So far, 100% of the first round of loans have been recovered. From 2006 to 2009, more than 180 hectares of land were brought under conservation agriculture, which in turn increased farmers income by 17%.

These outcomes are not the end of the road. In both instances, the initiatives further innovated and led to new outcomes. In Cambodia IDE is continuing to improve service delivery and diversify markets. The work in Colombia has continued under the guidance of CIAT in the Andes.

The main lesson that we have learned is that outcomes take time to generate, are iterative and not linear. There are not magic bullet solutions in getting to outcomes.

Over the coming months CPWF will be capitalizing on its ten-year research for development experience. Identifying ways to achieve ‘islands of success’, in all their shapes and sizes, is just one way CPWF can contribute to CGIAR’s envisioned ‘ocean of change.’ In its quest to reach millions, CGIAR must focus on the essentials: working through partnerships, engaging with development actors, building trust and listening to the problems at hand rather than just identifying big science-based solutions. What other lessons can we offer to help contribute to this change?

Following up on his recent trip to Bangkok, Thailand, Deputy Administrator spoke to the Bangkok Post for an interview dedicated to LGBT issues. During the Q&A session, Steinberg explained that the agency is launching the “Being LGBT in Asia” project. The project, the first of its kind, “is a comprehensive research initiative focusing on six countries – China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines– to reach out to LGBT communities to find out from them what their priorities are or what kinds of discrimination they face and how we can most support their efforts to join the political, economic and social mainstreams of their countries.”

In an op-ed featured in Politico co-authored by Shelly Esque, President of the Intel Foundation, and USAID’s own Maura O’Neill, Chief Innovation Officer and Senior Counselor to the Administrator, the authors emphasize the need for affordable broadband in the developing world. Comparing the same barrier of phone lines and electricity to rural America, Esque and O’Neill iterate that the same phenomenon could close the digital divide through the expansion of mobile broadband. “Much research has proven broadband to be a catalyst to transformation in economic growth, social inclusion and the delivery of essential services like education and health care when coupled with strategic economic and social development policies.”

The Pakistan Observer reported this week on the Entrepreneurs Project in Pakistan. Through the project, USAID will train 26,000 women embellishers across Pakistan to improve their skills and ultimately increase their income. “Through this project, USAID provides female artisans with the skills to improve their products, access better markets, and increase their incomes.” Already, one participant exclaimed: “Now I don’t have to think about what I will feed my children anymore. Instead, I can think about my children going to school and learning things I don’t know.”